Fragile

fragile : [adjective]
• easily broken or damaged
• not strong or sturdy; delicate and vulnerable.

I spoke with a friend of mine tonight for a long while about a lot of things all interconnected. Stream of consciousness + conversation = danger... or deep lengthy conversations.

I came to the question of feeling fragile- how do I overcome it? He told me that everyone wears that "fragile: handle with care" sticker. some just hide it more than others.
Makes me wonder- the ones that hide it, are they the ones who are (unknowingly) hurt? I have no clue. Nothing ever makes sense once you get out of the world of the finite and into the universe of the infinite.

He asked who the most invulnerable people i know are. My first instinct for these kinds of questions, whether strength, invulnerability, consistency, love, it's always my mother. I've always seen her as the mom who can solve every problem. Even if it's a hug on her bed while i cry for hours on end while she strokes my hair. That's a solution that can't come from anywhere but a mother's heart.
But is my mom above fragility? I'd always thought she had been.

Watching my parents through these now 6 months of cancer as the treatments get worse on my dad... I see something in her eyes that i'd only seen a few times before. One of those times was my fault and i think since then every time it's come up, i've had this overwhelming urge to search myself to find out what i'd done wrong so that i could fix it - so that I could make my mom strong again. So i could take back her broken heart.
My mom isn't immune to the fragility of human nature. But inspite of the fact that I've begun to see that my mother is frail - weak and weary in a sense - it doesn't make me love her less.

It makes me love her more.


So, momma, I love you. I love you when your eyes are filled with tears and red from worry. I love you when you're getting onto me for doing something amazingly stupid and you can't help but laughing at me. I love you for the memories we have of going to see chick flicks during the afternoons and having the theaters all to ourselves so that we could talk and giggle through the whole thing unashamed. I love you because you don't like to throw big parties. I love you because you'd rather spend a night at home with us than go out and be around distractions that could keep us from really spending time together. I love you when you treat me like the woman I'm growing up to be. And I love you when you treat me like the little girl I once was.

I'll always need you, momma. I'll always love you.
And even though i'm seeing that you're fragile right now... to me, you're still the strongest woman in the world.